


Who Needs Enemies?

by miss_whimsy



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alcohol, Attempt at Humor, Drinking & Talking, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-07-07
Packaged: 2018-11-29 02:14:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11431038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_whimsy/pseuds/miss_whimsy
Summary: Aaron needs a break. Robert needs some friends.





	Who Needs Enemies?

Robert used to be able to count his friends on one hand. More often than not there was just Vic and Vic didn't really count anyway because she was his sister. 

Then there was Aaron. His best mate. The love of his life. Aaron was the equivalent of all ten fingers and ten toes worth of friends in Robert's opinion.

Chas had actually been a really great mate if he ignored the way he'd sometimes catch her glaring at him as though she'd suddenly remembered all of the reasons she had to hate his guts.

There had been Rebecca for a while, but it was best not to dwell on that one. Especially since that one was the reason he no longer had the other three. 

Well, that and his own stupidity.

That was why Aaron had told him he couldn't do this right now ("Not forever, Robert. Just not right now."), that he needed time and space and whatever else he'd said while Robert had zoned out, entirely focused on the fact that he'd just lost everything in the world he wanted.

He'd packed a bag with Aaron standing there, watching him as though he didn't trust him to take the right things with him. 

Once the front door had closed behind him, Robert counted his friends again and realised he had nowhere to go.

Victoria had decided that Robert Junior was a better prospect for happiness and had adopted Rebecca for reasons known only to herself and maybe that tatty twenty-year-old teddy bear she still slept with that she thinks no one knows about. (Everyone knows. Adam is not discreet). Robert walked up the drive and into the village feeling perversely pleased that he wasn't the only Sugden whose best mate was actually their husband.

Chas was still in Mauritius with Liv and Sandra and even if she wasn't he had well and truly burnt that bridge. No more Monday nights spent hate watching Corrie and drinking cheap wine, which was unfair for many reasons. (Not least of which was that Eva getting revenge on Aiden for his affair with Maria was actually making him stupidly excited. He was aware of the irony). 

Adam, who once upon a time Robert would rather have stabbed himself in the eye with a rusty fork than called a mate, might actually understand his situation and take pity on him, if it weren't for the fact that he was, a) Aaron's BFF and b) currently living with Moira and that meant living with Faith (tolerable), Sarah and Jack (acceptable) and Debbie (no chance in hell, he wasn't actually a masochist).

He trudged up through the village with a heavy heart until he reached Bernice's house and knocked on the door.

_"Please don't let Doug answer. Please don't let Doug answer."_

Bernice opened the door, took one look at him and dragged him inside, wrapping her arms around him immediately. 

"You look like shit."

Robert loved his big sister. He really did. 

"I feel worse."

"I'm going to give Victoria a piece of my mind."

"Can we just get drunk instead?"

"Mum's home," Bernice whispered. "We could go out?"

Robert nodded. "Yeah, alright."

 

They ended up at the cricket pavilion with three bottles of decent white wine and a bag of sea salt flavoured Kettle chips because his life might be falling apart but he still had standards.

"It's not a break up then," Bernice said, swigging out of one of the wine bottles. "Just a little get-your-head-around-things holiday."

"Did you just call the breakdown of my marriage a holiday?"

"Oh stop feeling sorry for yourself," Bernice said. "That's what got you into this mess in the first place."

"Cheers."

"I'm just saying."

"Well don't."

"I'm sorry," Bernice said. "I'm on your side. I really am."

"Well, you're the only one."

"Mum is."

Robert drank so that he didn't have to swear at her.

"I'm definitely going to speak to Victoria, though. What's she thinking?"

She was thinking she wanted a baby, Robert thought, and then winced because there was going to be a baby and the poor little bugger was going to have him as a father and Rebecca bloody White as a mother so he was already completely fucked before he'd even been born.

"I don't want you to talk to Victoria," Robert said. "I just want to go back to February when I was happy and my husband loved me and I hadn't ruined my life."

"Aaron does love you," Bernice said. "Everyone knows how much Aaron loves you. Everyone in this village wants what you two have.”

Robert snorted. "No, they don't."

"Hey," Bernice snapped, "at least Aaron is just down the road and you can see him every day. Andy is God knows where."

"Bernice," Robert said, as politely as he could, which wasn't very politely at all. "I know this is really difficult for everyone, but just this once, just for today, could we not make this about Andy?"

"I'm not making it about Andy," Bernice snapped. "I'm saying, Aaron is still here. You have the opportunity to win him back, at least."

"He doesn't want to be a dad to Rebecca's baby," Robert said. "And I don't blame him. I don't want to be a dad to Rebecca's baby. How do I win him back exactly?"

"Well we're going to need a plan, aren't we?" Bernice said. "We'll all get together and help you."

"All of who?" Robert asked. "You're my only friend."

"Nonsense," Bernice said, "you've got loads of people rooting for you."

"Prove it."

Bernice stuck her tongue out at him and pulled out her phone. 

Robert finished the bottle of wine.

 

Nicola appeared twenty minutes later with a flipchart under her arm and Priya in tow.

"I brought more wine," Priya said, holding up her bag from David's. "Is six bottles enough?"

"Who else is coming?" Robert asked.

"I'm here, I'm here," Charity said, running in through the door a second later, carrying a bottle of apple vodka. "I thought you'd better lay off the whisky after last time."

Robert glared at her. "Why are you here?"

"Uh, because I'm on your side," Charity said. "Everyone in this village is so judgemental."

Priya sat down and opened a bottle of wine for herself. "Everyone makes mistakes, Robert."

"Meaning," Nicola said, "that the pair of you have shagged someone you weren't meant to."

"Well seeing as you're the only here who's shagged Robert, I don't think you can talk," Charity said. "I thought we were trying to save his marriage anyway, not share our worst sex stories."

Bernice raised her hand. "I've got a few of them."

Robert started banging the back of his head against the wall.

"What's the flipchart for?" Charity asked.

"Brainstorming," Nicola said, as though that was obvious. "What can Robert do to prove his love for Aaron?"

She wrote ROBERT in the middle of one of the pages with a marker and then looked eagerly around the room.

Robert grabbed another bottle of wine. It was going to be a long night.

 

The brainstorming actually helped. Robert had the beginnings of a plan forming when they decided to call a halt and get blind drunk instead.

"Do you want to be a dad?" Charity asked during a lull in the conversation.

Robert shrugged. "I've thought about it. Me and Aaron. Some dark haired angel with curls and an adorable smile."

“Aww,” Priya said, dropping her head onto his shoulder, the one that wasn’t currently occupied by Bernice. “That’s so sweet.”

“Yeah,” Robert sighed. “I thought we could get a surrogate. Or adopt. Aaron would be a great dad. He’s so loving. I wouldn’t be scared of doing it with him. It’s not really the same when you’ve accidentally knocked up your ex-wife’s sister while your husband was in prison.”

“She’s hot though,” Charity said. “I mean, I would. She’d have to be quiet though. Her voice sets my teeth on edge.”

“Speaking of people who should be quiet,” Nicola interrupted, taking the half-empty bottle of vodka away from Charity.

Bernice was silently giggling into Robert’s shoulder, he could feel her shaking as she clung on to his arm.

“You said they liked me,” Robert whispered to her, though it clearly wasn’t as quiet as he thought as there were suddenly three annoyed voices raised against him.

“Oi!” Nicola said. “We do like you.” 

“Why else would we be here?” Priya asked.

“Yeah, you can cut the self-pitying bullshit, sunshine,” Charity added. “We’re your mates whether you like it or not.”

Robert wasn’t entirely sure he did like it, not being at all familiar with it, but as Bernice squeezed his arm again he smiled at her, knowing that whatever happened next, at least he wouldn’t have to face it alone.


End file.
